Hainanese chicken rice

Ingredients

• Whole chicken1.6 kg
• Jasmine rice400 g
• Ginger80 g
• Garlic8 clove
• Spring onions6
• Sesame oil3 tbsp
• Soy sauce4 tbsp
• Red chillies6
• Lime2
• Cucumber1
• Pandan leaf — optional2
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Rub the chicken with salt inside and out and stuff the cavity with half the ginger and the spring onions.

   10 min

2. 2

   Bring a pot of water to the boil, lower the whole chicken in, bring it back up and turn the heat off immediately.

   15 min

3. 3

   Keep it covered for forty minutes without lifting the lid. It is done when the juices from the thigh run clear.

   42 min

4. 4

   Move the chicken into iced water for ten minutes, then pat it dry and brush it with sesame oil.

   12 min

5. 5

   Skim the fat from the broth, fry the chopped garlic and ginger in it, add the rinsed rice and toast it three minutes.

   10 min

6. 6

   Add broth to the rice at one and a half to one, drop in the pandan leaf and cook covered for fifteen minutes.

   18 min

7. 7

   Pound the chillies with garlic, ginger and lime into a sauce. Joint the chicken and serve with the rice, cucumber, sauce and a bowl of the broth.

   15 min

About the dish

The chicken is not boiled but steeped: the water is brought up, the bird goes in, the heat goes off and the lid stays on. Boiling makes the meat stringy, and what is wanted is silk.

Straight from the pot the chicken goes into iced water. The shock tightens the skin and sets the clear layer of jelly beneath it by which the dish is judged.

The rice is fried in chicken fat with garlic and ginger and cooked in the poaching broth. Rice boiled in water next to this chicken is a side dish; here it is half the meal.

Worth knowing

• — The chicken should be at room temperature before it goes in. Straight from the fridge it will not heat through in forty minutes.
• — The iced water matters, and so does the ice: cold tap water gives a different result and the skin stays soft.
• — The broth is served in a small bowl as a soup. Salt it at the very end — the rice has already taken some of the salt.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

690 kcal

Protein

46 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

68 g

More from Singapore

• Chilli crab — Crab in a thick tomato-chilli sauce bound with egg, mopped up with fried mantou buns.